Watch that potty mouth.
Those curse words your mother once upon a time told you not to use, or you’ll have to wash your mouth out with soap, are not even considered that bad anymore, according to Gen Z.
According to research conducted by a team at Macquarie University, the generation born between 1997 and 2012 doesn’t think risqué words like “p—k,” “d–k,” “c–k” are as offensive or crude as words that degrade people based on their sexuality or race.
Dr. Joshua Wedlock and his colleagues asked 60 Australian-born Gen Z students to rate 55 words on how offensive they were.
“Words used to disparage and degrade certain groups of people – racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic or ableist terms, which we collectively called -IST words – were rated as the most offensive and the most taboo forms of expression,” Wedlock said, according to an article published by Macquarie University.
Of course, certain words were more triggering for certain genders.
The researchers found that women understandably considered the gendered terms of abuse, such as “s–t” and “w—e”, way more insulting compared to their male counterparts.
Wedlock believes language is influenced by societal shifts and what is going on in the world at the time, which makes sense why some curse words like “f–k” are not considered as taboo as they once were.
“Language – especially what’s considered taboo – is shaped by culture,” he said.
“It’s also interesting to note that many more traditional terms used as swearwords and considered taboo in the past have fallen out of use and, in some cases, aren’t even recognised by young people today.”
In 2025, “f–k” and “b——t” are terms that used almost like an adjective in American culture — especially in New York.
How many times have you heard those words being used by a driver sitting in bad cross-town traffic? Probably a lot, considering New York was named the 17th-most foul-mouthed state, a ranking some might argue is inaccurate.
A study conducted by the word wizards at WordTips ranked the potty mouth state way lower than it should’ve been.
The states that ranked shockingly higher than New York? Alaska, Florida, Texas, California, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, Mississippi and sister state, New Jersey.
Maryland took the No. 1 spot for being the most vulgar state.
“With social media, all of a sudden now, we have direct access to people’s informal language. If we have
access to people’s informal communication and it includes more profanity, that just means we’re
going to be exposed to more of it and that’s going to normalize it, and so people have become
inured,” Benjamin Bergen, author of “What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves,” told the swear masters at WordTips
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